LEFT RADIUS ULNA RADIOGRAPH

A teenager with long history of painless swelling on the foreram.

Findings
A soft tissue swelling seen anterior to the distal radius and ulna with some areas of calcification within. There is also associated bowing of the distal radius. No evidence of periosteal reaction. No associated lytic or sclerotic bone lesions.

Diagnosis:
Soft tissue tumour, most likely haemangioma.
MRI confirmed intramuscular haemangioma.

CT SCAN OF ABDOMEN

A 35 year old lady with severe abdominal pain and continous vomiting.

Findings:
Typical appearences of bowel in bowel sign indicating presence of intussusception. Minimal free fluid in the pelvis and paracolic gutters.

Diagnosis:
Jejuno-jejunal intussusception which is usually self limiting.

Progress:
The symptoms resolved after the barium follow through examination in which the initial presence of gastric outlet obstruction sign seen resolved completely. The patient also said that the pain completely resolved. No more vomiting seen.

LARGE POST COMMUNICATING ARTERY ANEURYSM

A 3D RA image from Philips FD2010 Angiography machine showing a large bilobed posterior communicating artery aneurysm in which the the posterior cerebral artery seems to arise from the aneurysm itself. This is a very challenging aneurysm for an endosvascular treatment since if the aneurysm was coiled, it would sacrifice the posterior cerebral artery. Another option is to stent the posterior cerebral artery and then coil the aneurysm. After discussions, the best option is to clip the aneurysm until the origin of the posterior cerebral artery by neurovascular surgeon.

LINNC 2008, PARIS

LINNC 2008, for Live Interventional Neuroradiology and Neurosurgery Course organized by Prof Jacques Moret, a world renowed Interventional Neuroradiologist. Very interesting 3 days course which include presentation and hot discussion. The most interesting discussion is regarding the EVA3S trials (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00190398) which was presented by the researcher himself. It was very hot and interesting and had to be stopped by Prof Moret himself. For the uninitiated, EVA3S really change the perception of carotid stenting practice in the whole world especially France.

What i really like is the way the transmitted live transmission of angiography suite from Fondation Adolphe De Rothschild Hospital and neurosurgery operating theatre from Helsinki. It was very clear with only a very minimal delay in sound transmission from Helsinki. From what i know, the live neurosurgery from Helsinki was transmitted via satellite. And the way the transmit the images on the screen, interchanging from two to one screen was fantastic. I think they are using Mac for this.

For 2009, the course will be combined with ACINR (www.ics08.org) which will be held in Paris. For 2010, it will also be combined with ACINR and will be held in Istanbul. Looking forward for the Istanbul course in 2010.

PARIS JUNE 2008

Went to Paris last June 2008 for the LINNC course (www.linnc.com) which was held in the Carousel du Louvre (where the keep the Mona Lisa painting in the museum there). This is my second trip to Paris, after the first visit in 2007. Since i am not an art lover, Paris is not so exciting for me, and things in Europe are expensive. However the organizer and EV3 made a boat trip that night and i took a few shots of Paris with my Dopod D810 camera (so the images are not that good), which includes Arc De Triompe and Eifel Tower.

Went for a walk around town and found this crooked building image, which is actually only a drawing to conceal the construction of a building behind it. Very interesting drawing as compared to a very plain partition in any constructions in Kuala Lumpur.

For the last night, the organizer had a dinner in Chateau de Versailes, which is the last castle of the French Monarch. We skip this visit, since it is quite far from centre of the town and also we miss real meals. If you know Frenchmen, their lunch is very small and most of it not "halal". So instead of going to Chateau de Versailes, we go and find some Arabic food, and we have Kebab for dinner. Haha!

And as for the conference, it is fantastic, which i will talk about in another post.

DRAGON FRUIT

All my children love fruits. The third one (Aina Mahirah) really love fruits and vegetables. She can eat fruits only and skip her meals. But as usually, she cannot miss any meals, since my wife will force on her.

Went to Kluang during the weekend for some business. Stopped by an organic farm and bought four units of baby dragon fruit tree, which we have planned to buy since a few months ago.

Yesterday, planted the four trees in my backyard. Made the dragon fruit housing using some woods from the nearby construction site. Polishing my unused carpentry skills. Asked a few questions to the seller, it need very little water since it is actually a cactus. However it need a lot of organic fertilizer, in which you need to put it in every forthnightly. I will post more pictures as the tree grew. It will take at least 8 months for the first harvest.

Dragon fruit or pitaya, with a scientific name of Hylocereus has many uses. It can be eaten raw or made into juice.

This will be my experiment and if works, i will plant more of it around my house.

MAC AND OSIRIX

I am currently using a black 2.4GHz dual core Macbook with a 4GB RAM and 250GB hard disk. As for the time being, i still have Windows Vista Home in it, using dual boot from Boot Camp. The initial reason why i want to use a Mac is to use OSIRIX. After that, Mac is very irresistable.

OSIRIX is an opensource PACS workstation software. It is a fantastic software which can function similar as a modality workstation provided by system vendors such as Siemens, General Electrics or Philips. The only thing that cost you is to buy a high end Mac. The best is to use a Mac Pro, since you need to view thousands of images in one period. I will give some screenshots of OSIRIX. For more information, please google for OSIRIX.

COMPARISON OF MONEY MANAGER PROGRAMME FOR WINDOWS MOBILE

When I was searching for money manager programme for WM6 which can sync with my Macbook, i managed to try a few or almost all of them. There are a few which is SPB Finance, Pocket Quicken, Splashmoney and Ultrasoft Money. However during this period i only tried the first three. Didn't manage to try Ultrasoft Money. But i have used Ultrasoft Money for Palm, a few years back.

For basic function, almost all has it. However for the backup, import and export function, only SPB finance has it. There is none for Pocket Quicken and Splashmoney. So, SPB Finance wins here. Ultrasoft Money for WM6 has a similar function with SPB Finance. However i can't remember if it has an import or export function.

However, amongst all, Ultrasoft Money for Palm is the best, provided you sync it with Microsoft Money. It can sync your budget and also all your scheduled bills that you have programmed in Microsoft Money. Ultrasoft Money for WM6 didn't have the function to sync all your scheduled bill. This is a flaw.

I am still pondering to go back to Palm, probably Centro. However since i am a Macbook user, it would be useless since i won't have Microsoft Money for Mac. So, i will continue to use the current option of managing my account.

MONEY PROGRAMME FOR MAC

This is a problem when using a Mac. There is no Microsoft Money for Mac version. There is Quicken and Splashmoney for Mac. Tried them both, quite similar with the Windows version. I easily import the data from Microsoft Money via this method.

First i did a final sync of my Microsoft Money data into SPB Finance in my Treo 750v. Then from the Treo 750v, I export the data to a QIF file. Then from either Quicken or Splashmoney, the QIF file can be imported into both of them. However final editing need to be done for the initial balance of each account, that is to balance out the accounts. This is the first part.

The second part is to find a programme which can sync either Quicken or Splashmoney to my Treo 750v. Sadly, there is NONE. Full stop. I am very sad.

So, in the end, i continue to use SPB Finance in my Treo 750v with no sync option with an QIF file and email it into my backup gmail account.

Still hoping someone will make a programme to sync.

Very sad.

MIGRATING DATA FROM MICROSOFT OUTLOOK TO MACBOOK

I am now starting to be a Mac user after all these years of being a Windoze user. Fell in love with Mac, after only 1 week. After a long thought, decided to completely be a Mac user. However i have a problem. I need to transfer my Microsoft Outlook data into Ical and address book for Mac. Searched a few forums and discussion and finally found a solution. Let me share how i do it here.

For the contacts in Microsoft Outlook, I installed Mozilla Thunderbird first. Then import the contacts using Thunderbird from Outlook. Then export all contacts to *.ldif file. Take the *.ldif file. Use the Mac address book to import the *.ldif file into your address book. Microsoft Entourage can sync with the address book, if you decided to use Entourage later on.

For calendar, first sync the Outlook with the Google Calendar using Google Calendar Sync. Then open manage calendar and choose the calendar in Google Calendar. Find ICAL in the option. Right click on ICAL (the private calendar part), and save the data in your PC. Take that file into your macbook. ICAL can import that file. Microsoft Entourage can sync with ICAL easily, if you decided to use Entourage later.

However if you are very lazy to do all this, just buy OUTLOOK2MAC, for USD10. It can do it all for you.

Next is for me to find how to transfer my Microsoft Money data to Mac. That would be another headache.

HUAWEI E220 MODEM WITH EEE PC 900

Found some new findings about the Huawei E220 USB modem. It can be used with Xandros EEE PC which everyone knew. What people didn't know is that it is very easy. From the eeeuser.com forum, it is a difficult process with much tweakings need to be done.

What i did is to follow exactly the methods and programming used for the Sierra 875u USB modem. Even during the dialing process, the screen show it is using the Sierra driver. However after that, the modem seems to work.

The advantage of Huawei is that it is cheaper than Sierra. The price difference is about RM200. I should have gotten the Huawei and use the difference to buy a leather case formy EEE PC 900.

WATCHING DVD ON EEE PC 900

Your EEE PC 900 or 901 is has a big 9 inch LCD screen. It would make a great DVD player when you travel or in the car. But the problem is that it doen't have a CD or DVD player within. The easiest way is for you to buy an external USB DVD drive and play all your DVD movies from the USB DVD player. But the disadvantage of an external USB DVD player is that it will use more power from your EEE PC battery and it also add more bulk to your travelling items, an extra thing to carry.

So, the best way is to convert your DVD movies to format which you can keep in the EEE PC hard drive or a large 16GB SDHC (An A Data 16GB cost around RM200 now). With formatting, you can keep around 12 to 13 full length 90 minutes DVD movies in a 16GB SDHC card. That would give you around 20hours of movie time.

There are several converters around for both Windows and Mac. What i use for my Macbook is Handbrake (http://downloads.zdnet.com/search.aspx?kw=dvd+ripper&osfilter=mac&licfilter=free). It is a freeware and does the job well. I recently coverted "Hancock" at it gives around 1GB in AVI format. It took about 1 hour for the conversion process. Sorry, i can't give any Windows software, since i don't use Windoze now. Hehehe!

For the Xandros EEE PC, it can read mpeg, ogg and avi format faultlessly. However if the movie is in mp4 format, you may need to downgrade the mplayer to an older format, which i did. You can try using this tutorial ( http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=937). But if you are not adventurous enough, just convert all your DVDs into avi format.

Don't worry if you are using a Windows XP EEE PC, the built in Windows Media Player should read the file well. However if you need to read divx or xvid movies, you need to install an older version of WMP. Google for it.

So, enjoy your movies while you travel. With a power inverter in your car, you can have 20hours of DVD movies while travelling. But since the EEE PC speaker is awful, you may need to buy an external speaker to get a better sound. It would be much better, if you can find a way to connect the sound to your car sound system. That would be great.

Now i am in the process of converting Dark Knight and X Files into avi.

Enjoy.

BEING MOBILE WITH ASUS EEE PC 900.

I just got my Asus EEE PC 900.  It is the Xandros version with 20GB SSD hard disk.  It doesn't need any introduction since it is known to everyone unless you are living in a cave without any internet connection. First impression, very small and light.  The 8.9 inch LCD screen is a very good improvement compared to the 701.  The keyboard is quite small and cramped and i am still learning to type with the keyboard using all my 10 fingers.  This mini review is written using the EEE PC.  

The built in Xandros OS has nearly all the necessary software for your everyday use.  For example, Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, Openoffice, File Manager and etc.  You don't really need to upgrade it to Windows,since Windows is make the EEE PC very slow.  After using it for a few days, i found it gives you nearly the full function of a desktop or high end notebook, minus the weight.  So in the end i decided to use it as my secondary notebook when mobile or not at office.  The weight of less than 1 kg, makes it a truly portable notebook.  With the aid of a full keyboard, it is much better to emails, surfing and writing documents compared to a smartphone.  

Next is to make it a better and faster notebook. So, i upgraded the Xandros to a full desktop version.  You can do it easily via the eeeuser wiki (http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:getkde). Next to be portable, i need to use it with a 3G modem.  So i use my Sierra 3G modem 875u USB.  You can do it via here (http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=1100 &

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=22695).  

Next i upgraded the RAM to a 2GB RAM.  According to an eeeuser forum, this would not void the warranty.  I bought a Samsung 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM.  But it could not be used, the screen goes haywire.  So, what i do is to exchange it with my Dell D420 2GB DDR 500MHz RAM and voila it works.  So my Dell D420 got a new 667MHz RAM.  I am not sure what is the cause of this. The original RAM is a 400MHz DDR 1GB.  Initially i want to have a USB bluetooth in it, but i am not sure whether i am going to use it or not, since the Sierra USB modem is working well.  But you can use a USB BT via this tweaking (http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:bluetoothdongles).  

Next is to sync your documents from your Mac or Windows PC to the EEE PC, since you don't want to always copy and paste the documents to your portable harddisk or SD card.  Since the EEE PC has a SD card reader and it also supports SDHC, using a SDHC would be a good idea.  A 16GB SDHC card would cost less than RM250 now.  Currently i am using a 1GB SD card, since i am still waiting for my 16GB SDHC card to arrive.  To sync the documents to the SD card, i am using CHRONOSYNC  for Mac. (http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono_overview.html).  For Windows, you can use ALWAYSYNC (http://allwaysync.com/).  Both are shareware, but it is a small price to pay for a true portability.  With the SDHC card, all my important documents will be synced into it, located in the built in SD card reader of the EEE PC.  At home or office, i just connect the SD card to a card reader and sync it with the Macbook or notebook.  I didn't even try to transfer the files into the already small EEE PC hard disk.  

I have yet to test the true length of the battery life of this EEE PC.  But according to reviews, the original 5800mAH battery would last at least 3 to 4 hours on normal usage.  Since i don't use wifi at all, it would probably last me slightly more than that.  However if you need a longer life battery you can get it a WORCELL at Sing135 minus postage (http://worcell.com/product_info.php?products_id=74526&osCsid=11c78453355389bfdf6acea455bf1932) which is available in both black and white.  And if you want to get silicon skin or a leather casing for it, you can get it at BRANDO.  They are offering a few choices.  

I also have a first try on using the Openoffice Impress, the equivalent of Powerpoint yesterday for my presentation.  It doesn't recognize the Office 2007 files (pptx, docx and etc), but the Office 2003 and below didn't cause any problem.  The external output to LCD projector works flawlessly and my presentation was perfect.  

The Skype with the 1.3MP camera works well even with Digi EDGE only.  I talked to my sister in Japan on it yesterday.  So, for now, i am very happy with this EEE PC.  

The new EEE PC 1000 with a 10 inch LCD would be better but the price might not be good enough.   With the current price of around RM1500, it would be a better investment compared to a Treo or a HTC.  

After this, i think i will buy the leather case from Brando.  Maybe after a few months, i will buy the big battery 10400mAH from Worcell.  But for now, the current setup is good enough for me.

Tapping off.

NEW PLACE, NEW IDEAS

Hi! It is nearly 1 year since i update this blog.  Been pushed by my friend to start again.  Maybe i will start again, trying to do it with my EEE PC 900 or from my Macbook.  Just have to find something to write about.  Maybe i will write about my daily work and see how it goes.  Will start again tomorrow or tonight.  That depend......